Due to low birth rate, Japan abolishes social sciences, STEM for all.

[Hamilcar]

Isn't psychology both a social science and STEM?

Psychology is mostly studied by students who either don't know why they are at university, or failed out of other subjects.

Rude!

How does that make you feel?

It makes me feel that you said something rude?

Do you want to talk about it?

[garbon]

Isn't psychology both a social science and STEM?

Psychology is mostly studied by students who either don't know why they are at university, or failed out of other subjects.

Rude!

How does that make you feel?

It makes me feel that you said something rude?

Do you want to talk about it?

Is there anything else to be said?

[Valmy]

Do you want to talk about it?

All Psychologists are cognitive therapists now?

[The Brain]

Stanford & Son doesn't take kindly to snobbery.

[Hamilcar]

Isn't psychology both a social science and STEM?

Psychology is mostly studied by students who either don't know why they are at university, or failed out of other subjects.

Rude!

How does that make you feel?

It makes me feel that you said something rude?

Do you want to talk about it?

Is there anything else to be said?

I can get a metaphorical couch if it would help you get started.

[grumbler]

I doubt an IT professor costs more than a humanities professor.  The solution is to fire the humanities professor, and use the same amount of money to hire an IT professor to train programmers.  Same cost, better ouput.

You'd be wrong.  STEM experts make more money in industry than humanities experts, and so cost more to hire away from industry. "Better" output is  going to cost a lot more, even assuming that producing marginal STEM students is "better."

[DGuller]

Isn't psychology both a social science and STEM?

According to whom?  Psychologists?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STEM_fields

STEM-eligible degrees in US immigration
For more details on Temporary foreign workers, see Global labor arbitrage, H-1B visa, and Optional Practical Training.

An exhaustive list of STEM disciplines does not exist because the definition varies by organization. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement lists disciplines including physics, actuarial science, chemistry, biology, mathematics, applied mathematics, statistics, computer science, computational science, psychology, biochemistry, robotics, computer engineering, electrical engineering, electronics, mechanical engineering, industrial engineering, information science, civil engineering, aerospace engineering, chemical engineering, astrophysics, astronomy, optics, nanotechnology, nuclear physics, mathematical biology, operations research, neurobiology, biomechanics, bioinformatics, acoustical engineering, geographic information systems, atmospheric sciences, educational/instructional technology, software engineering, and educational research.

And then yes among psychs:

http://www.apa.org/pubs/info/reports/stem-discipline.aspx

The goal of this report is to review the current status of psychology as a STEM discipline, articulate the problem of inconsistent recognition of psychology as a core STEM discipline, provide a rationale for consistent recognition of psychology as a STEM discipline, and recommend specific actions to achieve this goal.

One of those is not like the others. 

[The Brain]

Actuary it is.

[Razgovory]

So this is what it looks like when a country dies.

[DGuller]

So this is what it looks like when a country dies.

Why is Japan dying?  It's focusing on what's important.

[Razgovory]

So this is what it looks like when a country dies.

Why is Japan dying?  It's focusing on what's important.

It's economic triage.

[DGuller]

So this is what it looks like when a country dies.

Why is Japan dying?  It's focusing on what's important.

It's economic triage.

Or just trimming of waste.  Well, I guess it's more or less the same thing.

[DGuller]

Social sciences give us the capacity for self-reflection, so it's hardly a surprise that any government with authoritarian tendencies would want to abolish those - it is much easier to rule cattle, even if that cattle can do math.

If we are to be serious for just a moment, I really question this premise.  Russia is actually a pretty well-read country, and it certainly has a lot of cultural achievements to be proud of.  One of the "advantages" of Soviet dictatorship was that culture could be shoved down your throat.  It sure did wonders steering Russians away from the cattle stage.

Yes, I understand the need for some rounding, but STEM people with some social science side interests tend to be way deeper thinkers than social science airheads.

[Duque de Bragança]

Actually, Japan tried some small scale immigration, or "remigration", by inciting Brazilians of Japanese heritage to come back to Japan but it did not work. These new Japanese, had gone native in Brazil and did not work like the Japanese in Japan do.

[Ideologue]

Budget is one factor.  The market may really demand more STEM graduates than social science graduates.

Really? Are salaries for STEM graduates rising rapidly due to shortages and fights over talent?

Can you illuminate us upon the last time you sought work?  Preferably that wasn't at the physics department at ______ University?

STEM salaries are not, for the most part, fantastic.  STEM is not the path to riches.  However, it is about the only path to the middle class that remains, and in general society would certainly benefit a great deal more from a million more people who know how to do concrete things than a million more people who (kind of) know how to ponder abstract ideas.

It would be amazing how the elite will defend the liberal arts to the death, if I didn't know why they did: because they went to elite universities where everyone wound up okay.  They do not see, to the point of willful blindness, that not every program is the same, and that the 90% of people who did not get their shitty history or psychology or English degrees from Harvard or Yale or Stanford--or their European equivalents, like, I dunno, Oxford.

The journalists, sociologists, and so forth that Martinus speaks of didn't get their degrees from Podunk.  They come from the elite university system, trained in do-gooderism and social justice and all that nice stuff, while benefiting enormously and sometimes invisibly from family connections and the elite educational network that a few percentile points of our society has access to.  Meanwhile, there simply is no place in the apparatus of "societal self-reflection" for the unwashed mass of liberal arts majors; the actual paying jobs that permit one to reflect upon society are few.  Whereas STEM grads can, at least, usually get themselves employed.

Sure: we live in late capitalism, and that sucks, but some of us obviously have a harder time living in it than others.  (Of course, you have people like Tim defending the status quo, when the dude is a fucking economic refugee.  I love him, but I don't get him at all.)

Anyway, the actual social sciences depend upon STEM methods and training in data-driven approaches.  Otherwise, it's anecdote-driven bloviation.  And the latter is exactly what is mostly taught in history and English departments--the Hobby Colleges of our universities.  Indeed, as far as the enrichment of the soul is concerned, an appreciation for art, culture, truth, and beauty, and so forth, is far better cultivated outside of the perfunctory, top-down, pseudo-intellectual system of rentseeking that actually exists in our centers of higher education.

I'm glad you're back, though, Hami!